Lessons
Day 1
1Introduction and Overview
11:29 2Getting the Right Gear
30:05 3So What Do I Need?
35:39 4Single Mic Demonstration
37:49 5Drum Micing Techniques Part 1
36:06 6Drum Micing Techniques Part 2
18:26 7Preamps and Gain Staging - Drums
22:43Preamps and Gain Staging - Guitars
20:07 9Reamping Guitars
17:44 10Critique Session: Pig Snout
30:13 11Critique Session: Owl Parliament Part 1
27:35 12Critique Session: Owl Parliament Part 2
23:22Day 2
13Pre-Production
21:10 14Getting Drum Tones
27:27 15Recording Shells and Editing
41:52 16Recording Cymbals
34:34 17Tracking Bass
22:31 18Tracking Guitar
19:30 19Guitar Overdubs and Doubling
30:12 20Mixing Guitars
25:07 21Recording Keyboards
21:04 22Replacing Tom Samples
17:55 23Takeaways: Dos and Don'ts
24:45Lesson Info
Preamps and Gain Staging - Guitars
We're gonna talk about a little bit how pre amps affect guitar signal like I like what you're talking about and um so we will have to set up a electric guitar then it will kind of show how to revamp a guitar and take a d I signal as well so it's good that you just give me a hot second too get situated for that were actually didn't you want to set up uh are you jamming ana okay and then do you want to jam on maybe this guy ok can you give me a favor and just yeah and I'm gonna open up a session ok got it so do you want to talk us through both sort of what um the processes for recording and then ramping how you go about doing like what you're doing now yeah um so in I would say for for this some of things I'm gonna be talking about is taking a d I for guitar and you're you know I think a lot of people's initial reaction is dea like unless you're familiar with metal production then die for guitar is going to sound pretty stupid to you um because you're right it does sound horrible um but ...
it's not really for that reason the reason I want to take a d I is because say for instance right now reason this uh yes forever okay there's one but we need that to go to the dea I need to be used for the time we get a table over here. Um yes, I want to take a d I just kind of like as a safety net because when you're recording, you know in that situation that I kind of keep referencing to your recording your guitar, your buddy's house and you're recording it on his amp that he says sounds you know, the best thing ever um then you know, once you get that track home may like your preference may be a lot different than his, but your performance might be fine, so what taking the d I enables you to do is use the same performance um but I guess replaying that captured performance through another amp or even the same amp at a different setting or with different mike position or any number of things, but it lets you keep the same exact performance um and redo everything else about it or the other thing that I've done before for for really I mean a little bit different but small budget things when a band hasn't had time or doesn't have the budget to sit in the studio with me for hours and hours tracking guitars perfectly something that I've been able to do is send them home with a nice guitar d I box and have them spend their own time getting uh yet getting the performance right you know, replaying it a million times until they're happy with it and whether that means editing we're just playing it a million times is you know that's up to you or where the band but ultimately what it lets you do is you know, spend all your all your time getting the performance and then taking those the eyes over to you know, a nice studio or a place that has amps and then running them through there that will you have the performance? Okay, so all right, so I need you to plug in to little handy d I box over here carry on you can keep it. I got a box. Naipaul does have never uses the eyeballs of more so you have a basic single path is going to be so first we're going to report is his actual performance right? Are you going into the computer and the amp up the same time? Yeah, yes. So the signal flow has to be, um if there is a slide for this, like I don't mind if you if it gets pulled up, sure. Um okay, so let me have you plugged into this and then take that cable out cool? Yeah, so that's a signal so it goes from the guitar to the d I box out of the d I box into the computer but it gets split at the d I box so it goes to the computer and the amp at the same time so you should be getting a signal sorry yeah one of the many things about uh recording because you guys probably know tons of delays what's supposed to take five minutes normally takes an hour so I see a radio on your diagram there is that what you use in the studio what do you prefer what would you have gone into people um because that's about what a two hundred dollars I think so yeah but they're awesome yeah I mean and I even use one thousand dollars really well it's like a full so he's one is called michael wagner studio tool and what it is it's a d I it's a transformer list die with impedance matching and revamping all in one box cool so it kind of lets you plug into you know your input and you can actually change the impedance of the guitar which which makes your guitar either brighter or darker or mushier or quick on dh you can change the impedance on the input and the output so it's it's pretty while um yeah I mean I think any decent d I will do for this um and um the other radio's radios a great dice I also have their I believe it's their jd seven which is like a rack mounted die and has one input with seven outputs I think so you can actually use seven different amps at one time yeah I think the most I've used is like six but it was still like just ridiculous but it's cool to have though because every once in a while you get the band that comes in and they say I heard that like, you know, whatever some band used like a combination of between and marshall and tweet and this and that and like eight different hands to get the sound can we try that? Sure. So um ok, so give me a little bit, you know? Do you want a little bit more okay? So with this particular set up right now, I am liking to different speakers which could give you I mean, you know, we're just gonna have to deal with that because there's no way you can put two mikes on a guitar speaker in the exact same spot just physically can't get there, so we do have that to take into consideration when we're listening to these two I have these two gained up pretty different differently this uh this top track here guitar one is hitting on the pre empt just barely hitting zero so it's kind of still in the green on ap eyes and that's like plenty of headroom on fbi the second track is kind of living in the red, which I haven't used this particular unit for so it the meeting could be a little different but normally for me that's like totally fine on guitars for these types of perhaps um so let's just to kind of take a listen and see if if there's even anything in here that you guys might find useful and we could just listen to these into yep not really about to give a deal moving on the uh here so here is the track um not being hit very hard and then here is the track being hit harder you can hear it kind of far right there when it gets uh here when he kind of hits that note hard um it doesn't really break up there's not there's this little I'll show you on the hitting it hard side and this is the things that you kind of have to watch out for from more dynamic guitars cleaner guitars these are the things that are going to kill you recording if you're hitting things too hard um but for things like heavy distortion guitar you're not really going to run into these problems as much because the guitar so saturated to begin with um so if you listen to this little section right here that I'm highlighting you should be able to hear kind of like a little silly pop kind of like forty sound once it plays over that section and then as I play the top one you'll notice that that isn't there buzzy rattle like this one does not have a way so and that clicking your hearing is just as it comes back around it's just at a different sample um so something to watch out for but I don't think necessarily for this type of tone that we're gaining a whole lot by hitting things hard um I almost feel like advice I would give is if you're attracting cleaner guitar's like this maybe stay on the safe side because the worst thing you would want or at least in my opinion, the easier you can make it on either yourself as a player you know or the band members as players not making them playthings a million times because you're already going to ask him to play things a million times because of things that they're messing up on so you want to try to screw up as at least amount of possible a cz well as you're going to be asking and play it again because when you recorded this you didn't like the tone they got or you move the microphone too much which is something I'm just going to touch on really quick right here as we kind of pump this die out teo get react if I can so let's see here I think I'm coming out of three sorry these aisles role funky any questions on that particular surge wants to know tell us why you chose that combination of guitar and cab and mike in particular and what that means for the specific track in style you're about to record or is it just what we haven't here in the studio today exactly it was, um however um that being said like the amp and in the guitar kind of really dictate what you play you know, which is something that you may not think about but instantly as you picked up that guitar you know I mean it's like a clean kind of like cool sound you wouldn't really start to think going like ginger joan ginger whereas if it was full heavy distortion that's probably what you might go towards you know or something really nasty but that was like it's kind of pretty cool thundery sound I'm gonna play something that's appropriate for um but that's also anything about to like as the gear you have well sometimes dictate what uh you want to play? Um yeah, as far as to answer your question, that was just kind of what we had. Let me see if I can kind of get this reum going can you throw that on standby for me way back on buzz way that's how do you put that now was this was going to be okay? We're good that's fine with your way so way the sand, ok, so I have no idea why that is so loud. He shouldn't be cool. Ok, so what I'm doing is, for whatever reason, it wouldn't let me send this directly out of my output to the re inbox. Um, but wait, here we go. So this is kind of a signal flow for the reactor. Um, on the slide, you, you come out ofyour interface into your react box out of your react box into your amp, and what that lets you do is this is really great. If you're if you're like doing things by yourself, because it lets you kind of track apart that you're playing on a d, I lets you pump that that d I threw an amp, and it frees you up to bill to go move a microphone and, uh, dialling tones, because if you're trying to do that yourself while playing guitar it's, like, impossible.
Class Materials
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Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
A lot of great info here! Awesome getting to see Beau's workflow and hear his thoughts on the methods he uses. Would love to see him do a class on micing guitars, bass and show his methods in more detail/time. He gets some of the best raw tones in the game. Feel like this was more of a great overview and would like more time for details seeing as he is a very knowledgeable dude. Thanks Beau for the great class and for sharing this info with us.